Reflections on EFL Management, Teaching and Learning

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Proposals on how we can confront the issues brought up by the course Women and Leadership summarised in Part 1 focused on the personal challenges that women face and what women can do about these to maximise their options of getting those top jobs and opportunities for development. The course did not go into any great depth on how the first two barriers (organisational and interpersonal) can be tackled, presumably because they are issues that require far-reaching cultural, organisational and societal change.

It did focus though, on the importance of building women’s self-confidence and on improving women’s negotiation skills.

Self-confidence

Women in general have a lot less self-confidence than men and as a result put themselves forward for jobs and promotion proportionately less than men with the equivalent experience and qualifications. Confidence, though, does matter and affects the way people assess our competence in our current job or potential for a new job. A confident, not outstandingly competent person is more likely to get a job in higher management and leadership than an extremely competent not very confident person.

Unfortunately the flipside of this is that confidence in women tends to be considered unfeminine or undesirable by many men although necessary for somebody in a leadership position.

Self-confidence is related to four pillars and according to this course women need to learn to develop all four:

Authenticity: this refers to being true to your beliefs and to who you are

Self-efficacy: this is about the belief in your ability to sort out problems

Adaptability: this refers to the importance of being resourceful

Persistence: this is about the determination to persevere in whatever we do

In addition to this is the importance of developing a voice, in other words, the ability to say what needs to be said in a way that is heard. Women in general are “listened to” a lot less than men.

Negotiating skills

Men are four times more likely to negotiate than women and are more likely to get what they want and not be criticised for negotiating.

The course recommends that women need to learn to reframe negotiations as interest-based discussions which aim to find a win-win solution (the organisation gains as well as the person negotiating). In order to make these negotiations more effective it is important to:

know your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) and the BATNA of the person you are negotiating with

balance empathy and assertiveness when negotiating

understand the role of your emotions in negotiations and learn to manage them

learn to negotiate from your authentic best strengths (rather than trying to imitate somebody else’s strengths)

I know a lot of very competent women in LTOs who are lacking in self-confidence and are not recognised enough for what they do. These women want to believe that they will be recognised because they are good at their jobs. Unfortunately, they can end up being bitterly disappointed and slightly resentful when this does not happen. Whether we like it or not we continue to live in a male-dominated world whether and the unspoken rules about how to get promoted and recognised are set by men. However unfair it may seem, women have to learn to play by them to a certain extent. Women need to develop the confidence and the negotiating skills which will enable them to sell themselves in this male-dominated world and get those positions and opportunities that they deserve.

I’d like to end this post in the same way as the course ended by emphasising that “success” is a subjective word and what counts is not what everybody else thinks success is but your personal definition of success. It was suggested that each women should complete the following three sentences: